THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE
Photograp
BAPTIE AND THE AUTHOR SUNNING THE
The Nature photographer cannot block
out a region on the map and say, like the
explorer or the surveyor, "When I have
covered this area my work is complete."
He can cover all of Nature's subjects, but
can never reach the end of her moods.
And the recording of moods-the sav
agery of the mountain torrent which
grinds down and engulfs the tongue of
forest that blocks its way; the perversity
of the peak that hides its head in a veil
of cloud-is his most subtle vehicle of
expression.
A life-span is all too short for the
artist who would picture, either with
brush or camera, a land or a race. Byron
Harmon's successful expedition to pho
tograph the Columbia Ice Field last sum-
mer and fall is the
crowning achievement
of 20 years spent in
Spicturing
the Cana
dian Rockies, but it
does not mark the end
of the work.
My first meeting
with Harmon was in
the summer of 1920,
atacampontheice
berg-battered
shores
of that incomparable
mountain gem, the
Lake of the Hanging
Glacier.
It was there that I
first heard of the Co
lumbia Ice Field.
Harmon had never
seen it himself, but
had been told enough
of it by mountain
climbers who had
made ascents within
sight of it, to lead him
Sto believe that the
region was probably
the finest scenically in
all the Rockies.
Because it was re
mote and difficult to
reach, he was saving
it for the summer of
his 20th year of
h by Byron Harmon
photographing in the
Rockies. With a prop
CARRIER PIGEONS erly equipped expedi
tion, he hoped to be
able to cover all of the region along the
Continental Divide where he had not
worked hitherto with his cameras.
In the spring of 1924 Harmon wrote
me that he had completed his preliminary
plans for his Columbia Ice Field trip, and
he asked me to join him and aid in mak
ing the motion-picture film.
A JOURNEY OF OVER 500 MILES FROM
BANFF TO THE ICE FIELD AND BACK
With a jaunt of my own already
planned-to drive a small motor boat
from Chicago to New York by way of
the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence
some rearrangement of schedules was
necessary to make both trips possible, but
ultimately I was able to dock in New
380